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Two hours after Reese went after Cole, he returns, without Cole. Savage collects him from the door, and he joins us in the kitchen. “He’s clearing his head. He’ll be back soon.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’ll be home soon,” he assures me, but he isn’t home soon.
Two hours later, I’m still in the kitchen with Cat, Reese, and Savage, working the clues to the murders, but I’m barely hearing anything they say. I’m about to try to call Cole again when the front door opens and closes. I am immediately on my feet and before I can even leave the kitchen, Cole appears in the doorway, the lines of his handsome face, strained and hard.
His eyes meet mine, and I can’t read what I find there when I can always read Cole. “I need to be alone with my wife,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine.
There are murmurs of agreement and Reese motions to Cat to follow him. Everyone disappears from the kitchen but me, and I quickly pursue. By the time I’m in the living room, Cole is joining me, lacing his fingers with mine to walk us to the couch where he sits down and drags me on top of him. He doesn’t speak, he just tangles his fingers in my hair and says, “I have something to tell you.” But he doesn’t tell me. He kisses me. A deep, dark tormented kiss that says more than words.
He has to tell me, but he doesn’t want to.
Chapter sixty-two
Lori
Cole is still kissing me and I cannot breathe for the emotion in this kiss, the hunger, the torment. It bleeds into me and I feel as if he is bleeding and I don’t know how to make it stop. I want to ask questions. I want to demand he tell me what is wrong before I explode with fear of what it might be, but that’s not what he needs in this very moment. I sense this, too. He needs me to wait. He wants to tell me. He’s said he’s going to tell me what this is, and I trust this man, with all that I am, I trust this man.
His fingers tangle in my hair, his tongue licking, stroking, and I slide my hand under his T-shirt, pressing my palms to his warm skin pulled taut over hard muscle. He reaches behind him and pulls it over his head, and already he’s stripping mine away as well. I’m left in only my thin black lace bra and his gaze lowers to the swell of my breasts over the lace and then lifts. “You aren’t going to ask what I want to tell you?”
“Are you ready to tell me?”
“No,” he says, his voice a rough timbre. “I’m not.”
“Then why would I ask?”
He slides his hand behind my neck and kisses me, a deep slide of tongue before he says, “God, I love you, woman. You are never what I expect.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I married you, didn’t I?”
“Yes which means whatever it is, it’s ours to deal with now. You know that, right?”
“But I didn’t want it to be yours,” he says. “I didn’t.”
“I know, but—”
“You don’t know,” he says, and then he is kissing me again, a drugging, intense possession, and I don’t even know where he begins and I end. I sink into the moment, into this man that I love so very much, and time sways and shifts. I don’t know anything but his lips, his touch, his taste. I don’t even know how my bra disappears, only that it’s gone and he’s pressing my hands to his knees behind me, as I continue to straddle him. His fingers splay between my shoulder blades, bracing me, holding me, his other hand palming my breast, while his lips, teeth, and tongue tease my opposite nipple. He is everywhere, consuming me, and I want to reach for him, to touch him, and he seems to react, his hand sliding away from my back, forcing me to hold myself up or fall. I’m at his mercy, and I don’t know why, but I am certain that this is what he needs right now. This is about trust, mine in him and his in me. And it’s most definitely about control. He wants it. He needs it. He’s trying to find his way back to it. With me, in this moment, he has it. When we’re like this, he always has it.
He continues to tease my nipples with his mouth, his fingers, even his teeth; he’s relentless in all that he does, his hands roaming up and down my body, my back, my sides, my belly. His mouth the same, and then back to my nipples, until I’m panting out, “Cole,” in desperation, a plea that I don’t even know how I want answered.
He drags his mouth to the hollow between my breasts, his lips pressing there, lingering for eternal moments. His eyes lift to mine, and in that breath, and the beats that follow, he is somehow dark, edgy, out of himself, and yet, so very tender at the same time. There is love in this look, in this touch of his lips. There is torment. There is regret that I want to understand. I want to take away his pain and there is so much pain that I never knew was in this man.
I am lost in everything he is, and we are lost in this moment when he drags me to him, his hand on the back of my head again. He kisses me, a tease of his tongue against my tongue, before he sets me on the ground in front of him, his hands on my hips. “Undress,” he orders softly.
There’s no part of me that resists a command from Cole, not like this, not when we’re alone, naked, and just us. Not when I feel how much he needs me to just accept what he needs. I reach for my pants, even as I toe off my sneakers, wasting no time ridding myself of my jeans, and when I would reach for my panties, Cole stops me. His hands come to my hips and he turns me to face the other direction. “Now take them off,” he orders.
I suck in air, a mix of heat and awareness rushing through me. We’re back to control; Cole spinning out of control. Right now, he needs what he doesn’t have. He needs that control. And so, I willingly do as he says, dragging the silk down my hips, and letting it pool at my feet, where I kick them away. With that control thing in the air, I expect Cole to keep me this way, my back to him. I expect him to spank me, or bend me over, or something that doesn’t happen. His hands come down on my waist, and his teeth scrape my hip before he’s turning me to face him and dragging me into his lap, my legs straddling his hips.
Once I’m there, he’s kissing me, a drugging, intense, burn-me-inside-out kiss, that is forever and not long enough. Suddenly he’s pressing me backward again, my hands on his knees, my breasts thrust high in the air, and his eyes raking over my naked, exposed body. The look in his eyes is as hot as they are tormented. He drags his hands over my breasts, down my waist and then his fingers are between my legs, stroking my sex, exploring and teasing, and I cannot reach for him, or once again, I will fall. Now, he has his control again, completely, fully, and I have none, yet I am sinking into this sweet blissful place that he can take me but refuses. He strokes and teases, taking me to the edge, my breathing ragged, my hips arching, and then he pulls back just enough to torment me.
He doesn’t let me come. He drags me to him, his cheek to my cheek, his lips at my ear. “You come with me inside you.” And then he is kissing me, a deep claiming kiss that shifts from possession to passion, to wild, hungry need. His hunger, his need, and it feeds mine.
There’s a band of tension wrapping us that seems to snap. Suddenly we’re all over each other; touching, kissing, trying to get closer to each other and I don’t even remember how Cole’s pants get down, just finally, good Lord finally, the hard length of him is pressing inside me, filling me, stretching me, every nerve in my body on fire. I sink down his shaft until I have all of him, and for just a moment, we don’t move, our mouths lingering close, breath mingling. Cole’s torment is back, waving between us, and I know in this moment, Cole feels like he will lose me. Maybe it’s that he fears I’ll die. Maybe it’s that he fears whatever he tells me will change us, and there is only one way I can answer. I press my hands to his face, and my lips to his lips, silently reminding him that I am here in every way. He covers my hands with his and claims my mouth, and just like that, we are kissing again, the snap of tension back, and already we trying to get closer and closer, and still, it is not enough.
I’m consumed by this man, in how he feels, how he smells, how he needs and I need too, and it drives me toward that sweet spot I both want, and do not want—not yet. I try to hold back, I try to wait, to stay in this place with Cole, but it doesn’t work. I, in fact, do not have control. My body clenches and then begins to spasm around Cole, every part of me trembling as I tumble into that perfect sweet moment. Cole holds me tighter, shuddering into release, a low, raw masculine sound groaning from his lips. It lasts forever and yet, it is over far too quickly. We collapse into each other, our breaths rasping in the air, melding, seconds ticking by eternally when reality returns and I realize how snugly Cole is still holding me.
